Our everyday life is characterised by various objects and materials. We use them and integrate them into our daily routine as a matter of course. The exhibition ‘Material’ follows the traces of this materiality.
Manfred Erjautz, for example, expands his concept of sculpture by creating his works with the help of the children's toy Lego. The archetype of his Lego work is a handgun - a paradox: toys versus violence. His thoughts continue: what can be done with a weapon? A robbery? What is captured? Lego? In this consideration of the weapon and, subsequently, of salvation, the transition to the cross was a minor one. The exhibition shows a weapon as well as crosses and cranes.
Jakob Gasteiger repeatedly works with different materials alongside and with his ‘traditional’ panel paintings. As the basic idea of the exhibition is based on the everyday nature of the material, Gasteiger is showing two aluminium sculptures at galerie bechter kastowsky. Large quantities of molten aluminium are poured into a container filled with water using a forklift truck. The result? Uncontrollable - unpredictable. Spiky aluminium shapes that evoke the most diverse associations.
An object made of chipboard appears in the centre of the room. Not flat against the wall, but protruding from it. Irritating - like so much of Roman Pfeffer's art. Measuring tapes that are suddenly cut up and put together like a mathematical formula. Cooker tops that extend to all six sides in a cube system or the previously discussed pressboard panels, which are nothing more than panels.
Wendelin Pressl also works with wood and cardboard, building his skyscrapers fragile - or bombed? - towards the sky. Structures that are irritating, because are they fragments or signs of destruction? The - unfinished - puzzle ‘The Tower of Babel’ picks up on this idea. Man strives for the perfect tower, the all-encompassing structure, and yet at some point it collapses. His frame sculpture also picks up on the act of destruction - and manages to transform it into a harmonious whole.
Animal skins! Anneliese Schrenk works with this material. Pieces of leather, some untreated and treated with fire, acid or even water, develop into their own ‘pictorial worlds’. Anneliese Schrenk's works certainly represent the most painterly position among the six artists and yet they are so far removed from the classic concept of painting. Her objects are also interesting, in which she moulds the leather skin into sometimes bizarre shapes reminiscent of coats or even baroque ornaments.
When is the best time to dry laundry? Don't we also like to hang wet clothes over the radiator? Philipp Schweiger's clothes horse follows this principle: a structure made of heating pipes whose valves give the impression of clothes pegs. In addition to the clothes horse, the pallets are also on display. No, not made of wood, but of corrugated cardboard - pointless, because these pallets cannot withstand any weight.
